Flickers In The Dark
by ROBOTURBOT5000
Summary: A great many beings have stood at the edge of the Terminus, the limits of known space, and howled out into the void.      A few unlucky souls have received a response from the darkness.


Please note: this story takes place after the Horizon mission but before the Normandy goes to Illium. It is not based on any of the 'canon' from the AvP expanded universe.

* * *

><p><em>Of course I can order it. I'm the god-damned commander of this ship, and I have the final say as to what happens on board.<em>

I am absolutely ordering this thing be replaced with a staircase.

Shepard rubbed the last of sleep from his eyes as the elevator beeped, signaling it had finally reached the CIC deck. He'd managed to steal three glorious hours of sleep before EDI's summons for him to appear on the bridge, and hoped that the increasingly-strong cups of coffee he'd been slugging back would keep him on his feet until his mandatory relief time came up. Out here in the Terminus, you couldn't go more than five hours without running into some sort of mess that required fixing. He strode around the main star-map display, weary footfalls echoing in the quiet of the command space. It was the graveyard watch, and only the essential positions were manned. A few nav station operators, a communications officer, a drive specialist and-

"Joker, what's the sit rep?"

The pilot was already turned around in his chair, conversing with Specialist Delanquist, the comms officer. He looked right at the bags under the Commander's eyes and smirked. "Wow, some people don't need their beauty sleep but you are definitely not one of them, Commander."

"When I get tired, I get cranky, Joker. You wouldn't like me when I'm cranky." He glared at the helmsman and added, "Unless you want to be demoted to AI Assistant, Third Class."

"For the record, I wasn't the one who made the decision to wake you up. Delanquist insisted that we had to get the Commander down to the bridge personally to hear 'bout this transmission. I think it's probably nothing."

The short, dark-skinned woman next to the helmsman sputtered, "I- I checked it over three times! It matches an EPRB perfectly in signal strength and pulse duration-"

"A what?" Shepard looked at his now-empty coffee cup with disdain.

"Emergency Position Rescue Beacon, sir. Most civilian and all military ships and exploration vehicles have them. This one carries the identifier code of the Batarian government."

"It's probably just a decoy, a pirate beacon," Joker opined. "This is the Terminus, after all. You wanna just put out an alert to all ships in the vicinity and go catch some Z's, Commander?"

Shepard turned and took a few steps back from the cockpit to gaze at the star map. This sector had no proper name yet, just a code, and the clusters it contained were totally uninhabited and only lightly surveyed. "This isn't really the Terminus," he began. "We passed out of Terminus space yesterday. This is the boundary between known space and the rest of the void, and there isn't a single person to rob, rape or kill out here. If this is a trap, it's the worst-located trap in history." He sighed and rubbed at his temple. Some days, it didn't pay to have experience and instinct. _Why can't I just ignore these things for once?_

"You did the right thing, Specialist Delanquist. EDI, give the crew another hour, then let them know we're going planetside.

* * *

><p>"Safhir 46- K'sharr? What kind of name is that?"<p>

Shepard looked over at the krogan impatiently tapping his knife against the plates covering one thick leg. "Until someone besides the batarians survey this system, we have to use their names," he explained. "Play your cards right and they'll name this Grunt Prime." The shuttle rocked slightly as it entered the planet's thin atmosphere under Jacob's control; the pilot VI wouldn't work on a completely uncharted world swathed in electromagnetic radiation from a nearby gas supergiant. The planet was almost a moon of the huge pale-blue sphere, their orbits almost perfectly synchronized by the supergiant's relentless gravity.

"Commander," came Jacob's voice over the intercom, "we're inside the atmospheric limit now. I think the structure is- no wait, there's nothing- ahh, there it is. All this electromag interference is raising hell in the Kodiak's scanner systems. " The craft lurched over into a bank as Jacob corrected their course. "Switching to visual."

"Nice flying, Taylor. Keep us posted." Shepard responded. He turned to the salarian sitting next to him, fiddling with his omnnitool. "So Mordin, anything helpful to tell us about this little rock we're landing on?" Mordin flicked his huge eyes up at Shepard, then went back to the holographic display on his arm.

"Silica-iron-nickel terrestrial planet, gravitationally towed by Urdos 23 Xel, unsettled. Atmosphere thirty percent oxygen, fifty-five percent nitrogen, ten percent methane, three-point-five percent carbon dioxide, remaining balance noble gases; pressure at surface thirty-two kilopascals. Ambient temperature minus thirty Centigrade on day side, significantly colder on night, maintained only by weak sunlight and greenhouse gases." Mordin looked up and offered an apologetic smile. "Sorry Shepard, have not studied astrogeology in decades. Should brush up."

The commander watched from his window as the shuttle banked again, circling a large concrete pad with two hexagonal doors set on its top. The dim twilight from the system's star cast the surrounded low plateaus of rock in sharp relief and left the opened door in deep shadow. The Kodiak descended slowly through the opening into pitch darkness, then settled down in a brightly-lit hangar. The environment scanner announced it was safe to proceed outside unsuited, and the doors hissed open. Shepard gave his pistol one final check-over, and led his squad out onto the hangar floor. It was large, easily ten times the size of the Normandy's cargo bay, walled partially by plasticrete and partially by the natural rock of Xelbit. There were doorways against one wall with Batarian placards above them.

"Shepard to Normandy, we are on the ground with ambient life support. Beginning search."

"Acknowledged, commander." EDI's soothing, synthesized voice came through his earpiece. "We are picking up energy signatures but their locations cannot precisely be determined due to interference. The facility appears to be fully powered."

Shepard glanced around the hangar as Mordin went up to a pile of dusty crates and began scanning them. On the other side of the crate pile was a batarian-built shuttle, a half-moon shaped wing with a cluster of engines on the rear side. It was dirtied but appeared spaceworthy, and Shepard couldn't be sure if it was completely powered down over the low hum of the hangar's ventilation system. Beside him, Grunt hefted his shotgun apprehensively, but with a small grin settling into the corners of his mouth.

"Tungsten carbide," Mordin intoned, moving from crate to crate. "Cooling coils. Xenon replacement slugs. Spare exciters… hmm, laser cutting equipment. Geological survey base." He turned to the others, frowning. "Shuttle displays State Mineral Group markings of Batarian government. Unlikely to be pirate base. No signs of struggle, yet… no staff. Curious."

The three advanced on the shuttle. There was definitely some power on; a heavy, mechanical pulsing noise came from somewhere within the ship. As they got closer, Shepard could see the boarding hatch on the belly was opened and a faint light shone from inside. A large hole next to the cockpit glass made him re-evaluate his previous 'spaceworthy' estimation.

"Source of signal confirmed." Mordin lowered his omni tool and brought up his pistol as Grunt racked the slide on his Claymore. Shepard hesitated to draw his weapon just yet; he didn't like batarians, but the idea of going into a rescue situation with guns out didn't appeal to him either.

"Hello," Shepard called out. "This is an away team from the SSV Normandy. Is anybody in there?"

There came a faint clatter within the shuttle that grew louder, ending when a batarian stumbled down the gangplank stuffing a pistol in his belt. He threw his arms wide and raced towards Shepard, stopping short when he saw the massive krogan with shotgun at the ready. His expression of joy faltered a bit and he lowered his hands.

"The beacon worked! I never thought I'd be so glad to see humans- well, one human. What- what are you pointing that at me for?"

Shepard motioned for Grunt to lower his weapon; the krogan complied reluctantly. "I'm Commander Shepard of the Normandy and this is my team. What exactly happened here and what is your emergency?"

The batarian dashed back up the ramp and returned with a large satchel. "I'm Grignkok, surveyor's assistant, and we need to leave now. All the others are dead, there's nobody left but me and there _won't_ be anybody" – he threw the satchel strap over one shoulder and grabbed a crate from beside the ramp- " unless we go _right now_." He motioned towards the Kodiak. "Our ship is toasted- hull breach. Couldn't get out of here on my own."

"We're all safe for now," Shepard responded, holding his hands up. "What happened to the rest of your team?"

"I guarantee if I told you, you wouldn't believe me," the batarian sighed. "Look, I've got data cores in this crate that have a record of every single thing from day one. We can read them on your ship, as soon as we-"

On the far wall, a door hissed open. A figure stumbled forwards, clutching its abdomen in pain. It staggered a few more steps into the lights and Shepard could see it was another batarian, wearing a uniform identical to Grignkok's. The alien groaned and pleaded for help. Grignkok dropped the crate and frantically drew his pistol.

"Karnak? No, you were with the second drill team. You didn't make it out. _You didn't make it out_!" He cocked the pistol with shaking hands. "Get back! Get back in there!"

"Shepard, the four-eyes has gone nuts." Grunt looked over at his commander and frowned.

"Lower your weapon now," Shepard barked, hand straying to his hip. "He's unarmed and wounded!"

"No! You don't understand… they're in him now! He'll kill us all."

"I am ordering you to-"

The wounded batarian lunged forwards with his arms out and Grignkok panicked. A single shot fragmented the hangar stillness and the bent-over alien collapsed to the ground. Grignkok swung the pistol around, waving it from one squad member to the next.

"I told you! I told you he 's gone! Those things… you have to get me out of here! Now!"

Unfortunately, he decided to punctuate his statement by shaking the pistol muzzle at Shepard's head. A deafening boom rang out, Shepard flinched, and the batarian collapsed on his knees, blood pouring from a messy wound on his chest. A second boom rang out, and through the haze of auditory pain Shepard saw the batarian topple backwards onto the cold plasticrete floor. Grunt racked the Claymore's slide once more and gave a pleased huff.

"Goddamnit Grunt, I didn't give you an order to shoot!" The commander tried to shake the ringing out of his ears. "He was our best chance at finding out what the hell happened here."

"Can't find out anything when you're dead, Shepard," the krogan wryly observed, toeing the carcass with his boot. Mordin holstered his pistol and went to check the other batarian; Shepard picked up the crate Grignkok had been holding and examined it. It seemed to contain the data core from every major recording system in the facility; with an adaptor, they should be able to plug them into the Normandy and extract the records. In the meantime, they should check the rest of the facility for-

"Life signs!" Mordins voice rang out from halfway across the hangar. Shepard jogged over to join him at Karnak's prone form as the salarian dispensed a dose of medi-gel onto the bullet's entry wound. "Abdominal injuries less critical for batarians… still, vitals weak, perhaps from internal injury. Should remove patient to _Normandy_ for prompt treatment."

"Can you stabilize him here, Mordin? I want to search the facility in case there are other wounded left behind that Captain Graciousness over there wasn't telling us about."

The salarian shook his head. Shepard pondered his options… he could order everyone back with the casualty and risk running out of time to find anyone else alive here, or he could leave the injured alien, find no other survivors and then have his only eyewitness die. A remote mineral surveying base in the far reaches of space, missing workers... whatever happened here, it stunk to high heaven. Pirates didn't leave behind tonnes of valuable supplies and batarians wouldn't involve mercs in State business. The commander decided to compromise: send the victim back with Jacob, then have the rest of his away team join him to aid in a thorough search for survivors. He keyed up the shuttles' frequency and told the pilot to warm up the mass effect drives for immediate departure.

"Tell Chakwas she's got a critical piece of intelligence in her hands, and tell Miranda to suit up and get her butt down here."

* * *

><p>As far as patients went, this new one was a real puzzler. Dr. Eileen Chakwas read over the scan results for a third time, shaking her head in wonderment. An expert in batarian physiology she was not, yet what she did know was completely at odds with what lay before her on the gurney. The patient's gunshot wound was simple enough to treat, but the enormous growth in his chest and upper abdomen was something else entirely. Without penetrative topology imagers or exploratory surgery, she couldn't tell much about it; it was just an abnormally dense mass of tissue that showed up bright and clear on the basic medical scans. There were no apparent malignancies, and most puzzling of all, it seemed to be large enough to take several years, perhaps decades to grow. A benign tumor of this growth rate should have been removed years ago… and the Commander had said that this was a miner? <em>What mining company would let an obviously ill man sign up, or lack the resources to perform a simple excision?<em> Chakwas had half a mind to remove it right away herself, but given the blood loss and continued neural unresponsiveness, the good doctor decided that it could wait until the patient's immediate injury was healed. She shooed the ship's inquisitive yeoman away from the alien's bedside and sat down at her desk to begin typing up the report.

Faint motion in the corner of her vision made her jump. She looked up, but the alien remained still on the table, breathing regularly. She returned to her duties, chiding herself for being so wound up. "Honestly Eileen, you need some off-duty time. You're no use to anyone if you're seeing things."

When the sheets covering the batarian's chest lifted up for the second time, she didn't notice at all.

* * *

><p>"Four hours?"<p>

"I am sorry, Operative Taylor, but the planet's rotation is bringing the facility closer to the bow shock from Urdos. The Kodiak is not rated to handle a Class Four electromagnetic disturbance." EDI's polite voice did nothing to ease Jacob Taylor's annoyance at the delay. The blue holographic orb regarded him passively as he shifted his weight back and forth in front of the briefing room terminal.

"Is there any way we could strengthen the shuttle's conductive dispersers?" he asked.

"Strengthening the magnetic protection system is easy- and was recommended during the last update cycle- but it would take more than four hours to complete the modifications. Waiting is both prudent and time-effective." The armory door hissed open. "Greetings, Operative Lawson."

Miranda Lawson curtly acknowledged the ship's AI and turned to Jacob, smiling with all the sweetness and civility of a pit viper. "Jacob, I understand you left the Commander planetside with a krogan super-soldier and no backup for several hours, " she folded her arms impetuously over her chest, "and also brought an alien on board without proper quarantine procedures."

"I know the protocols, Miranda," Jacob sneered. "Doctor Chakwas' scans showed zero risk to the crew, and you'd be after me for disobeying one of Shepard's direct orders if I'd stayed there with him. I don't like the situation any more than you do." He leaned back against the console and mimicked her arm-folding.

Miranda's face softened. "If anything happens to Shepard down there, I'm personally responsible. The Illusive Man-"

"The Illusive Man trusts Shepard's judgment," Jacob replied. "You should too. For god's sake, he's a Spectre, a former Alliance marine. If there even is a problem down there, I'm sure he can handle it." Properly cowed, Miranda pretended to pluck bits of lint off her bodysuit before excusing herself to confer with the doctor.

"It's not very often I go on gut feelings," came her parting shot, "but given the way I feel about this, lets hope for all our sakes you're right about that."

* * *

><p>Nothing in the facility seemed to make sense. Just in the first set of doors from the hangar was a ready-room for the exploration crews, containing survival suits, toolkits, supplies and datapads. Some of the suits were completely missing, a few were still on their racks, and the rest were strewn on the floor and benches. It looked as though the miners had tried to hurriedly evacuate to the outside, but why would they do that if they were under attack from that direction? The suits left behind were incomplete; clearly a bunch of batarians had been very eager to get out of this place, to the point of grabbing other's helmets and boots in error. Why a group of presumably well-trained workers would flee into a frigid wasteland with mismatched outfits was beyond Shepard.<p>

Then there was the cutting laser. It was a man-portable unit, weighing about fifteen kilos and supported by a harness, and it was snapped roughly in two on the floor. Part of it seemed to be corroded beyond all use, and there were divots in the floor, some as large as a fist, that looked like spots where some sort of highly reactive chemical spill occurred. The rack on the wall was empty of all other lasers, evidently snatched up as impromptu weapons. There was no indication of laser fire on the walls, no blood spatters or burnt tissue. Military training told Shepard that the initial point of contact was usually the scene of the most intense fighting; this room looked more like a haphazard rally point.

Beyond the ready room lay the main hallway, completely empty and lit by emergency lighting. The next major room was a cafeteria, neat and empty and completely untouched. Usually, people who were under attack didn't have enough time to close up their cafeteria. The chairs were neatly set upside down on the tables, awaiting a cleaning staff that would never come; in the kitchen area, food packets were still stacked in cupboards and appliances were deactivated. It wasn't until Shepard noticed two trays of some sort of meat and plant mixture that had been messily emptied that he saw the first thing out of place in the kitchen. Stepping forward to investigate them, he put his boot down right in the second out-of-place thing.

"Augh, this is- what the hell is this?" He lifted up the boot, slimy clear fluid dripping off it, and shook it to dislodge the fluid. Mordin made a 'tsk-tsk' noise, and gently held Shepard's calf while scanning the goo.

"Hmm," he mused. "Organic. Protein based, slightly acidic. Composition suggests… saliva."

The human looked down at the puddle on the floor. "Awful goddamn lot of saliva for a batarian, don't you think, Mordin?" The salarian looked at him with a grave expression contorting his face and blinked with both sets of eyelids.

"Actually Shepard, results indicate species… _unknown_."

* * *

><p>Being the executive officer and right hand of the Illusive Man meant never having to ask for access codes on a Cerberus ship. Miranda's right hand swiftly input the universal access pass while her left twisted and tugged at a lock of her hair in frustration. Jacob was becoming more and more of a hindrance, and there was nothing she could do to remove him from the situation. Of all the qualified operatives, why did he have to be the one sent to aid her?<p>

_Because the boss wants to keep you on your toes, Miri. If you were in his place, you'd do the exact same thing._

When the door hissed open it took her brain a few seconds to connect the pungent metallic smell with the scene before her. Her stomach balled up as she surveyed the medbay, spattered throughout with a fine spray of inky blue-green fluid.

_Batarian blood._

The body on the gurney was out of position, as though it had tried to sit up before… _this_ happened. Blood dripped from a blue-stained arm hanging down the side and one foot dangled over the opposite edge. The sheet pulled up over the body had completely changed colour from the fluids staining it. To her, it looked as though someone forced an activated grenade down the poor bastard's throat.

"Operative Lawson? I- oh dear God."

Chakwas' grief-stricken voice seemed far too quiet in the stillness of the medbay. Miranda turned to find the grey-haired woman behind her with an armload of datapads. Her face was every bit as shocked as the brunette's as she surveyed the room. Both carefully approached the bed, the doctor briefly checking for a pulse out of habit, before Chakwas slowly reached up and pulled the bloodstained sheets down around the batarian's waist. If Miranda hadn't been sick before, she was certainly going to be now.

"What… what was wrong with him? What caused this?" Miranda stared into the gaping hole in the alien's torso, turning paler than the doctor. "Who was in here with him?"

"No-one," Chakwas protested. "I left to get some datapads to copy files on batarian illnesses and disorders. The room was locked and sealed as you asked!"

"Eurgh, goddamnit… can you do an autopsy?"

"I can do enough of one to answer some questions." Doctor Chakwas put one hand over her mouth in shock. "He had a large tumor, I believe, but otherwise he was in stable condition. I don't see it present in the wound though."

"A bomb?" asked the Cerberus operative. "Implanted to turn him into a hostage?" The doctor shook her head. Miranda stepped back, tearing her eyes away from the mutilated corpse. What little she'd had for breakfast was now pushing at the back of her mouth, demanding release. She turned, excusing herself to the bridge to issue a general alert, leaving Chakwas to begin the cleanup and decontamination procedures for the medbay.

The doctor input commands for the remote sterilization system on the main console, and returned to her erstwhile patient's bedside as the four coffee-can sized cleanup bots went to work. The wound was large enough for her to put two fists into, virtually destroying the chest wall. Despite the horrific appearance of the room, there was actually very little tissue missing from the pectoral area; only a few shreds lay on the table and floor beside the body. Most of the mess seemed to be blood spray, likely from ruptured coronary arteries. She frowned upon spreading the flaps of skin and bone over the chest to peer inside. The wound seemed far too clean for an explosive; indeed, her first guess would be penetration by some sort of pipe or scoop. She tentatively probed inside the chest cavity. Something felt very wrong. Several glances at the xenobiology datapad in her hand confirmed what she was feeling.

Batarians had two lungs, and both of his were missing.

It wasn't just the lungs, as it turned out: the heart, spleen-like organ and some sort of gland related to endocrinal functions were also gone. Not gone as in destroyed or shredded, gone as in removed entirely. What was in the chest was something that wasn't mentioned in any of the batarian anatomy texts she'd skimmed over on her way back. She teased it out easily and held it up to the light. Translucent blue, stretchy, and as thick as shoe-grade mulgorf hide, it didn't seem to have any blood vessels, or any attachment points to the dead batarian.

"Is this… some sort of placental sac?" It sounded silly out loud, even quietly, but the more she studied it, the more Chakwas was convinced that it was not originally a part of the dead alien's body and not something artificial that had been implanted. She carefully removed the gory prize and set it on a fixation tray. Sliding the tray into place in the scanning machine, she returned to her work, with only the hiss and hum of the cleaning drones to accompany her.

* * *

><p>"You're sure it's not from a Collector?"<p>

Shepard poked his pistol into the crack between the closet door and frame, using the M-3's built-in light function to sweep the small room. The beam played across crates, pipe sections and precious little else. "Making things disappear is their _modus operandi_, after all."

Mordin paused his omni-tool scans. "Cannot be certain that Collectors not involved, but certain that fluid greatly dissimilar from Collector tissue samples found on Horizon. Rare-earth compounds, long chain hydrocarbons… very unusual."

The three moved on, further into the bowels of the compound. Things became increasingly more disarrayed: doors were left depowered and half open, boxes knocked over, tools and gear left in the middle of the floor, bits of broken furniture strewn about. The power was on, but broken conduits meant that some sections of hallway and rooms were still in darkness. Ventilators filled the background with the soft hiss of atmospheric recycling, but aside from that, the air was still and quiet. Shepard found himself increasingly unsettled with every step further in.

"Grunt, how are those krogan senses working?"

"I smell it everywhere. Metallic and cold, just like the tank." The heavyset reptiloid tapped his fingers against his shotgun's foregrip and growled. "It must be in the vents. They're blowing the smell over everything." Shepard couldn't discern any unusual odors but the krogan was obviously unnerved by being scent-blinded.

The next major set of doors opened into a pitch-dark room bathed in a pulsing hum. Mordin pushed his omni tool up to maximum brightness, its warm orange glow tracing out flickers of pipes and machinery around the perimeter. "Ventilation deck," the salarian observed. "Careful." Shepard's hair ruffled in the warm breeze from below as the trio edged out onto the metal grate floor. Cautiously, they spread out to find the door that would take them further into the facility. Shepard and Mordin used their omni-tools as lanterns while Grunt relied on the superlative prey senses of krogan. The former Spectre swung his pistol slowly from side to side, watching the laser sight play over the jungle of pipes and corrugated sheet metal that formed the room. Worryingly, the floor began to creak and flex as he advanced.

He was almost to the far corner when he heard a sickly crunch beneath his left boot.

* * *

><p>Miranda pushed the lycra of her bodysuit around with her nails in a futile attempt to satiate her itchy back. The off-duty crewmembers were temporarily confined to quarters as the ship underwent standard decontamination procedures; she had already been cleared by the doctor and wanted nothing more than to take advantage of the empty showers. She paused just inside the doors, looking longingly at the stalls and groaning. All that hot water pouring over her naked body would be so nice… but the Illusive Man would be most upset if she didn't' keep up with the increasing number of reports to be filed. Her head was already on the chopping block for letting an alien with a potentially infectious and definitely fatal illness aboard. Miranda took one last longing look and slouched on to her quarters.<p>

As the door hissed shut she was already peeling off her catsuit and rummaging around in her drawers for a fresh set of Cerberus-issue track clothes. "I suppose I can at least pretend to be clean for the time being." she huffed. Just as she was pulling the tank top over her head, a faint sound reached her ears. She stopped, bent over with the shirt half on.

The faint scratching continued.

She completed dressing and stared around the room. The noises seemed to be coming from the hull-side wall. At first she thought it might be sounds echoing down air shafts but when she placed her ear against the wall listen she recoiled almost immediately. "EDI, when the Normandy departed Purgatory, were all the vermin checks completed?"

"Yes, Operative Lawson. My records indicate no immediate biological contamination was found and all non-personnel zones were properly fumigated." EDI's blue orb popped up instantly from the terminal on Miranda's wall.

"I'm hearing something in the walls," Miranda said. Vermin were a serious problem in space; duct crawlers, Kerovian firewings and good old _Rattus norvegicus_ from Earth could chew through seals, short out power lines, contaminate food and plug up reactor tubes. The Normandy's state-of-the-art decontamination equipment was enough to slay a platoon of the little buggers, but nature always found a way around Man's innovation. If she lost the ship to a bunch of pests, she might as well hurl herself into the nearest star.

"Could you be more specific about the nature of the something?" came the AI's smooth tones.

"Something _alive_." The Cerberus agent took a step back as the scratching came back. "Can you scan this section of the ship to check for extra life-signs?"

"Operative Lawson, my sensors are not accurate enough to detect lifeforms smaller than five kilograms. While I am picking up faint auditory signals, I cannot detect any living organism besides yourself in the vicinity of this cabin."

_Damnit_. "Isolate the air supply duct to this cabin, EDI." Miranda reached up and popped loose the push-fit grille over the duct. If there was something alive in the vent, it was about to make an appearance. She closed her eyes and concentrated on sending pulses of biotic energy into the metal ducting, causing it to start vibrating. The scratching turned to pounding as whatever was in the ventilation space became frantic to escape. Miranda's eyes were half opened when something cold, hard and alive shot from the open grate directly into her face. The creature matched her scream as she toppled backwards onto the floor; it leapt off just before she hit, claws digging deep into her face, chest and shoulder.

Miranda rolled onto her fingertips and toes, whipping the hair out of her eyes. She caught a flash of movement sliding under her desk and lunged to her feet, sending the desk flying with a biotic field. Something leaped from beneath the furniture and darted under her bed; Miranda hit the futon with an antigravity field, but the thing held on, scampering about unseen on the bottom. When the bed hit the ceiling, it punched straight through the plexene frame and mattress and leapt towards the wall, entangled in her sheets. Miranda hurled her desktop terminal at it, missing by millimeters. The last she saw was a segmented tail as the thing landed on the wall and threw itself into the duct, bedding and all. The scrabbling noise of claws on steel faded, replaced by a muffled bang.

"Ventilation seal failure on deck three," EDI chirped.

A fierce bout of dizziness overtook Miranda as her adrenaline rush wore off, overpowering her with a flood of pain from the cuts all over her upper body. When she reached up to wipe sweat from her brow, her hand came back crimson stained. She weakly requested the ship's AI summon Doctor Chakwas and slid down against the wall as blackness enveloped her.

* * *

><p>In the buzzing darkness, three figures stooped over the orange glow of an omni tool. Shepard stared at the creature on the grating before him as though his eyeballs could somehow peer through its flesh. Mordin delicately lifted one limb at a time, waving his tool over the body; the salarian's normal intensity had been turned all the way up to ten since Shepard pointed him at this… crab.<p>

"Amazing, simply amazing. Complex multicellular silicon-based lifeform, utilizing oxidation as fuel for cellular mitosis, although… probably can't term micro-structures 'cells' given differences. Distributed neural system, few organ structures… highly durable physiology, or adaptation for rapid growth. " Gingerly, he flipped the eight-legged creature over, noting the broken-off digit and matching hole in the floor. "Hmm, bodily fluid appears acidic. If any further specimens found, suggest caution in handling them."

Shepard rubbed his forehead in exasperation. "Trust me, Mordin, I will let you do all the touching. Any idea on what it's doing here and how it's related to the situation?"

"Unsure," the salarian ventured. "Apart from acid, does not seem to pose threat to us or batarians. Possibly scavenger, attracted by dead bodies in facility. No firm theories as to diet or behaviour, or whether endemic to this world or not. Request permission to transport specimen back to Normandy… with proper containment protocols, of course."

Grunt had been shifting from one foot to the other for some time; now he made his annoyance heard. "What for? It's small, weak and dead, end of story. I crush bugs like that in my sleep." Shepard brought up a hand to silence the professor's indignant response.

"We'll pick as many up on the way back as you want, Mordin. Let's try and go a little further in before we have to return to the hangar."

Grunt huffed and took a few steps away before the floor snapped and groaned alarmingly. All three staggered as the acid-weakened beam underneath the corpse bent, then gave way entirely. The heavy krogan toppled off balance, landed on his backside and broke completely through the grate. Shepard cried out as he vanished into the plenum below, sliding into a vent shaft and obliterating the fan in a spray of plastic and sparks. Shepard slid a meter down towards the hole before his armor caught on the grate and stopped him; Mordin reached out and grabbed him around the shoulder.

Shepard crawled to the hole in the centre of the bent floor. The shaft dropped a few metres before transitioning to a downward slope. A huge dent where the krogan had changed direction was the only thing left at the bottom. Shepard shook free of the salarian's grasp and eased himself down into the vent.

"Shepard, this chamber likely not far above filter station. Krogan capable of surviving fall, suggest we locate stairwell and-"

"Can it," the ex-Spectre snapped. "I'm going after him." Bracing his legs across the ductwork, he eased himself down to the sloped section and skidded along in awkward steps, leaving the salarian pacing above. After a dozen or so meters the angled shaft ended at a broken grate and a dark chamber beyond. Shepard's first step landed him ankle-deep in some sort of slurry. Faint blue lighting from two service lamps let him see the ten-meter square chamber and the dark lump rising to its feet ahead of him.

"I'll heal." Grunt responded to his inquiry with typical krogan manners. He staggered towards the commander with one hand up over his face. Holding up his omni-tool, Shepard surveyed the room for an exit. As luck would have it, the adjacent wall had a short ladder leading to an access hatch. The air was cool and thick with humidity and a slight acrid smell; the slurry turned out to be pea-sized beads in water. "Mordin, I think we ended up in some sort of air filter room. We're gonna come out, try to follow my signal down to the-"

Shepard's voice trailed away as he stepped into a large circular depression in the centre of the bead mass. The light from his omni-tool revealed dozens of soccerball-sized ovoids nestled into the slurry. What shocked him most was the thick fog clinging to the globules, without dispersing in the humid air. As he lifted his foot to take one step closer, Grunt's forearm impacted with his chest.

"What the hell-"

"Shepard," the krogan said uneasily, "we shouldn't be in here."

"I hadn't exactly planned on coming down here, Grunt."

"Those look like eggs. This is a _nest_." Grunt punctuated the statement by jabbing one thick finger at the mass.

"And?"

"And whatever produced those things might still be around to defend them, Shepard."

Shepard pushed past Grunt and cautiously approached one of the "eggs". It did indeed seem like it had once held something organic, but it was empty, its top a four-petaled orifice that hung open. Most of the other pods seemed to have their tops popped as well. _Perhaps they aren't eggs_, he wondered, _but some sort of land-barnacle_?

Shepard noticed one that still maintained a perfect ovoid shape. Thinking to secure it for Mordin, he stepped one foot into the mist and reached out towards it. As his probing finger neared it, the fleshy flaps began to unfold.

"Grunt… I think we should probably g-"

* * *

><p>The Normandy's compartmentalized cargo hold was lukewarm at the best of times; shutting down the ventilators dropped it to a few degrees above freezing. Although the circuits were unreliable and the power drain was excessive, Garrus had not been this happy to have a heater built into his suit in a long time. It made the task of sweeping the frigid hold almost pleasant, despite the best attempts of the Cerberus personnel he'd been saddled with.<p>

"What are you talking about?"

The human woman jumped at hearing his voice. "My light keeps going off," she whined, bringing her assault rifle up to show off the problem.

"First of all," Garrus sighed, batting it away, "if you keep waving a loaded weapon around like that you are going to kill someone. Probably yourself. Secondly, you do not need the light in here, unless you're blind, which returns us to the first point. Make do without it." The human sulked but stopped fiddling with her rifle. He had barely turned back to searching when a loud crash sounded from behind him. The woman was attempting to look nonchalant as she stacked the filter canisters she had just knocked over, her face turning a bright red.

The turian twitched his mandibles. "I'm sorry Mr. Vakarian. I keep tripping over things and stuff because the people who organized this place didn't do a very good job and I think maybe I should stick with you." She wrapped her arm around his and looked up at him with her mouth curving upwards. Human behaviour was still mostly beyond him but from what he understood, Garrus believed this reddish-haired woman was _hitting on_ him. Frankly, he preferred the typical Cerberus behaviour of shifty unease and curtness.

"Miss, could you plea-"

Garrus' words froze in his throat as he looked down the empty aisle, then over to the woman still at his side. Another clatter confirmed his fears. He raised his weapon and motioned for the incompetant to step behind him. "What's stored in that section of the hold?"

"Just kitchen supplies I think," came the woman's response. "Sauces, condiments, MREs…"

Garrus let out a curse in turian and started edging towards the doorway, the human huddling behind him. They stepped around and over cans on the floor, half-empty and torn apart. The woman stepped in something slimy spilled on the floor and fussed over it loudly enough to make him consider the consequences of knocking her out. When they reached the doorway, she pressed one of her odd fleshy cups – _ears_- against the metal of the door and made several faces, then nodded to the turian. Garrus motioned for her to step aside, then leveled his assault rifle and punched the door panel.

There was absolutely nothing inside.

Slowly, he swept the inky room with his flashlight. More canisters and packets of all kinds were emptied on the floor, the crates holding them broken and pried open. The woman mused wonderingly what size of rat it would take to do this much damage. Garrus stepped gingerly into the room and lifted up a packet of EZ-Meat with one talon; a long string of viscous clear fluid dripped off it. Just as he straightened up, he swore he could hear a hissing sound over the dull background noise of the ship's air vents.

Abruptly, the human reached for one edge of the door. "Why are you poking around in the pitch dark?" she inquired. "There's a light switch right here." When she hit the switch, Garrus winced from the sudden brightness and turned to scold her. He saw her jaw drop wide open just as a fat droplet of slime splashed on his fringe.

He looked straight up into translucent lips curling back over black gums and teeth that went on to eternity.

* * *

><p>Thousands of lifetimes in the hellish food chain of Tuchanka had gifted the krogan with incredible reflexes for such large creatures. If Grunt had seen the movement inside the egg, he might've been able to dodge the little beast when it erupted forth. As it was, he had just turned to see what his battlemaster was talking about when the leathery body and eight gaunt limbs smacked into his face like a huge hand. His first instinct was to bellow; this only let the disgusting creature shove some sort of a tube into his mouth and start wiggling it down his throat past his tongue. It tasted bitter and metallic and cold, more like an old glove covered in oil than a living creature. Still roaring into the thing on his face, he bit down just as a lump of something pushed past his teeth inside the tube. The thing squealed and thrashed, searing acid blood squirting into the krogan's maw. Pure adrenaline from twice as many glands as any other sentient species flooded through Grunt's system and he finally tore the bug away from his face and clamped his pharyngeal plates shut, blocking the lump from slithering any further down his throat. Wisps of smoke rose up from his burnt face. The krogan dropped to his knees, heaving and cursing for several seconds before expelling his stomach contents in a display almost as disgusting as the original face-hugging scene.<p>

The bug-thing flipped onto its feet just in time to receive a shower of bile more potent than even its alien chemistry could handle, and it flopped and turned several times before curling up, black and dead.

Shepard had been holding on to the tail of the beast and the sudden lurch threw him off his feet. One glance at the mess in front of him nearly made him lose his own lunch. Shakily, he gripped the krogan by one shoulder and helped his teammate back to his feet. Grunt looked terrible, face pitted and blackened by acid-induced sores.

"Are you going to make it, big guy?" He leaned in to get a better look; a sudden lunge by Grunt sent him reeling.

"I _told_ you," the krogan hissed, "we shouldn't _be_ here."

An access port on the far wall hissed open. Mordin stuck his head through and stumbled back as two laser targets flickered across both his eyes. "Ahh Shepard, was beginning to worry- goodness, what has happened to Grunt's face?"

* * *

><p>"And you absolutely, positively had to take it with you?"<p>

Mordin looked up from the leathery egg he was carrying in both hands. "Of course Shepard! Must study and preserve the specimen. If what you claim is true, could be vital in understanding creature's feeding habits and life cycle."

They were walking along a catwalk suspended in what the doctor described as an inactive volcano's caldera. Shaped like an elliptical dome, it stretched nearly two hundred meters across at its widest point and was crossed by four intersecting paths which led off to different dig sites. Fifty meters above, the top arched inwards to a slash that let in a shaft of dim outside lighting; warm water vapour rolled up from the cavern floor and cooled into foggy clouds just below the catwalk. The batarian miners had evidently been using it as storage for their domestic water. Mordin had assured them that going through the cavern space led to a ramp back up to the main labs, whereas returning the way he had come meant scaling an empty elevator shaft and a hallway full of leaky gas pipes. Grunt took point, nervously sweeping his shotgun from side to side as they advanced.

Shepard peered over the side of the catwalk at the shifting fog. "Trust me, I wouldn't exactly make something this disgusting up. It tried to put something down Grunt's throat that sure looked a hell of a lot like an embryo, if you could tell under all that krogan… err, puke." He was well and truly tired of this pointless non-rescue waste of time and wanted to get back to the Normandy and collapse back onto his bed for a few weeks straight. Checking his omnitool, the commander confirmed that they would be taking a right turn onto the intersecting catwalk in a dozen or so meters.

The salarian shifted the egg-thing into the crook of one arm and fiddled with his own omnitool. "However, am curious as to exact origin of these pupae. Seem too large and complex to be secreted by parasite's body. Almost suggestive of eggs laid by larger organism. Positive, Shepard, you did not see anything else in the nest chamber?"

"Nothing, Mordin. That one bug was the only other living thing in the room. Whatever laid those eggs wasn't around."

"They're here," Grunt said from a few metres ahead.

"Of course," Mordin quipped. "Presence of eggs in facility would necessitate presence of adult phase."

The krogan turned to face them, racking the slide of his shotgun. "No, salarian. I meant they are _here_."

Commander Shepard held up one hand to stop them as he swept his omnitool around the cavern. He shrugged and held up the display showing negative life signs. Grunt huffed and turned away. "I don't care what your toy says," he sneered. "I know what I'm sensing."

"Grunt," Shepard began apologetically, taking a step towards his teammate. The tugging sensation on his foot made him forget what he was about to say. He glanced down to see a bony hand, shiny and black and twice the size of his own, wrapped around the toe of his right boot through the mesh catwalk. The light from his 'tool shone over the hand, the arm it was attached to, and the murderous mouth attached to whatever was holding onto catwalk from the other side. It pulled its lips back into a grimace and hissed.

Shepard cried out and the thing kicked at the underside of the grating, causing the walkway to jump and shake. A snakelike rod with its own set of tiny jaws burst up through the floor, snapping closed just short of the commander's groinplate. Shepard began firing wildly through the floor with his pistol, the Phalanx giving off metallic thuds as round after round tore through the alien's body. Green blood splashed up against the grating and sizzled. The thing lost its grip with its legs and dangled from the catwalk by its hands, struggling. Grunt leaped in and stomped on the grate hard enough to knock Shepard off his feet and send the thing screeching into the mist below. The salarian fell to his hands and knees on the damaged metal, peering into the depths.

"No! Creature was incredibly scientifically valuable, could solve entire mystery of this facility! Should have allowed for cryogenic capture and study!" Mordin looked as though he was about to cry. Shepard had to push against the krogan to stop him from sending Mordin over the side of the catwalk to join the alien.

A chorus of hisses sounded from the chamber walls. Rising to his feet, Mordin joined the commander in lifting up his omnitool to illuminate what appeared to be the whole rock face of the opposite wall shifting and moving downwards. The catwalk shuddered as several heavy things dropped onto it in the darkness ahead of them. Grunt ejected the heatsink from his shotgun and crammed a fresh one in.

"Ah, never mind," Mordin said quietly as he reached for his pistol. "May just get the opportunity after all."

* * *

><p>Jack had made a habit of raiding the food stores every night cycle when there was less chance of another person in the cargo hold. She could've asked, but it just felt <em>right<em> to be pilfering second helpings and extra desserts from Cerberus. The least they could do was give her the satisfaction of ripping off a few slices of cake. "Or whatever that brown foamy shit is," the ex-con grumbled. Starship food was usually only a notch above prison chow on the 'edible garbage' list. Even these Cerberus pukes couldn't do much more than pack on the sauces and spices and hope nobody got tired of eating everything ground or diced.

Jack's train of thought was derailed by muffled thumps coming from inside the stores room. It sounded like someone was doing some serious rearranging of the crates. "Figures," she scoffed. "One lil' rat gets on board and these dumbfucks become paranoid." This was going to make stealing a snack more difficult than she cared for. Just as the ex-con turned around a single loud 'thump' made the door reverberate. Jack looked back at it, curiosity piqued. Shepard had given her full access, so…

The door slid open halfway, groaned, shuddered, and stopped. Beyond it was only dim red emergency light; the power was out in the hold. As she stepped along slowly Jack strained to hear any sign of whatever or whoever had been making all the noise. The cargo hold was permeated only with silence and the eerie crimson half-dark. One look around the ruined stores room confirmed the source of the sounds, at least. There were crates and shelves lying broken all around the place, spattered with small patches of blue-black ichor and…. _claw marks_?

Jack whipped around, narrowly missing the source of the slithering noise behind her. The tip of a segmented tail vanished behind a row of crates a few metres away. _Great_, she thought, _now Shepard's added another alien to his intergalactic petting zoo_. "Hey, I see you, shithead." Jack stalked around to confront the interloper. "Are you down here fucking around with my cakes?"

Red light bounced weakly off a mass of smooth shapes crouched on the floor of the aisle. Bent pipes rose up from a curvy line of vertebral lumps that coiled down into an obscenely long tail. Long arches of limbs rose up over the invisible body, as black as the shadows and just as still. Only the last few segments of the tail twitching back and forth indicated it was alive. It lifted an elongate skull and turned it to face her as Jack staggered back a step in awe.

"You… are the _sexiest_ fuckin' thing I have ever-"

Another pile of angles and limbs fell out from behind one of the crate stacks behind the creature, gasping and wheezing. Jack could see something dripping off its face. "Jack," it wheezed, "you have to… get away…"

"Turian guy? Garrus?"

The blue splats. She'd spilled it so often in her career that Jack kicked herself mentally for not recognizing turian blood when she'd seen it. From the sound of things, he was pretty beat up. The biotic found herself staring at the top of its skull as the bizarre alien rose up to full height. "What the hell is going on here Garrus?"

"Hos-tile." Garrus choked and struggled onto his knees and elbows. A sound like a broken steam pipe came from the creature as it rolled back its lips to reveal two sets of teeth, one neatly nestled inside the other.

"Agh, sweet Asari ti-"

Jack curled a tendril of biotic force around several crates and sent them flying. The alien raised one slender arm and batted them aside. Screeching like nothing she'd ever heard before, it was on top of her in a second. She flung herself aside as it sailed through the space she'd just occupied and landed on all fours a few metres behind, long taloned fingers drawing deep grooves in the floor. Jack waved one arm and brought a row of steel canisters raining down upon it, then slammed a glowing fist towards the beast. A quarter-tonne portable generator ripped off its bedding and arced up and over her and directly onto the canisters. Steel shrapnel and oil grazed her face as it disintegrated.

"Fuck you," she spat at the debris. She wouldn't lose sleep if that thing ate the ex-cop, but no way in hell was she going down before taking Cerberus to the cleaners.

Jack caught the movement in her peripheral vision just quickly enough to throw up a biotic barrier before the creature swung around another crate-stack and hit her with arms outstretched. The shield kept its claws and teeth from puncturing her skin but the force knocked her flying. She sprawled over a collapsed shelf as the thing leaped on top of her. It weighed far too much for its size; Jack felt as though someone had dropped a car on her. Claws sank into her shoulder as she grappled with it, left hand flaring up with biotic energy around its throat. The inner set of jaws whipped out on an extendable proboscis and Jack caught the slimy thing with her other hand just in time. It snapped its jaws at her several times; each time she managed to push it back or aside as its teeth closed within a hair's breadth of her flesh. She screamed with rage and wrapped a biotic field around its entire body, willing every molecule into its neighbour. "No more fucking party tricks for you, asshole," she wheezed.

Nothing happened.

Jack had ripped doors off of armored skycars and thrown Ymir combat mechs with her biotics. She could break every rib in a man's body and push them all through his lungs just by closing her fist. She had the power output of three or four top-level biotics and yet when she tried to crush this greasy beast, all she felt was firmness like bearing down on steel bar. What's more, the sensation of enveloping her biotic field around another living thing was all… _wrong_. Numbing coldness built in her spine and seeped out through her nerves, and she felt as though she was standing at the top of an immense, freezing chasm and staring directly down past her feet at the bottomless blackness below.

Through the haze that filled her eyes, Jack saw a redheaded woman appear above the creature's head, face contorted in some comical approximation of rage. She held a length of pipe over her head and brought it down against the thing's jaw. It definitely felt that. Its head snapped to one side and it toppled sideways off Jack, jaws and proboscis sliding out of her hands. When it turned to hiss at her the woman screamed and bolted for the door. _So much for the help_, Jack thought. She levered herself up onto her hands and knees and faced the thing circling her cat-like on all fours. Wounds burning with icy fire and struggling to get her breath back, Jack prepared herself for what she grimly assumed would be the final assault. "Come to mama, you shitfa-"

A burst of assault rifle fire tore up the floor between the two, driving the animal back. Garrus took another step forward and groaned, holding one hand over the bloody gashes in his side armor while shakily pointing his Vindicator with the talons of the other. He cursed upon seeing his bad aim and the creature, uninjured, preparing to spring at him.

"You're still alive, turian?" Jack wheezed wonderously.

"I don't feel like it," he quipped in response, sidling up to her. A burst of pain made him double over

"We're fucked, you know that, right?" Jack staggered onto her feet and nearly fell into him, blood dripping down her chest and elbow. Garrus took another look at the creature rising up onto its hind legs.

"I know, Jack. I know."

* * *

><p>Entering the denser troposphere of Safhir 46 caused the Kodiak to buck abruptly and forced Jacob to ease back on the thrusters. The shuttle pierced through thin clouds several kilometers above the surface, shedding the last of the St. Elmo's fire it had picked up from the receding electromagnetic storm. Jacob tried to open a comms channel again but the result was still the same fuzzy static and unidentifiable screeching. The Normandy's more powerful arrays had only picked up one transmission from the away team since the storm had passed, and it was not encouraging.<p>

Yelling. Panic. Gunshots.

"Stupid, you're stupid Jacob," he hissed at himself. "Shoulda stayed with the commander no matter what. You left your commanding officer to die on some icy rock." He dropped the shuttle's nose and felt his stomach rise up into his neck as it accelerated. Wheeling it around into a gentle bank, he made visual contact with the facility on the forward-looking HUD, several kilometers distant. He didn't bother to reverse thrusters until the last moment, then cut power and strained against his shoulder harness as the shuttle dropped like a rock down the hangar access hatch. Hard down thrust halted the Kodiak's descent and slammed him back down into his seat. Jacob opened the door and got up from the pilot's chair to peer through the cloud of dust raised by his hard landing. "Kilo-alpha-one to away team. Shuttle is at the retndezvous point without a visual on the prize, over. What is your position?"

"-acob!" came the garbled voice. "Get – engines up no- can't wait – ETA twenty sec-"

"Commander! Shepard, come in!"

A lone figure appeared, hustling through the settling dust. Mordin was hotfooting it to the shuttle with what looked like dirty rags clenched in either hand. The salarian threw himself through the open door, choking and sputtering. "Operative Taylor, suggest you activate lift engines immediately."

"Where's the commander? I'm not leaving without him, goddamnit!" Jacob barked. Mordin pointed back towards the hangar wall.  
>Grunt and Shepard burst through the doorway, moving like the ground was on fire. Shepard had his grenade launcher held over his head; he stretched out one arm and yelled something indeterminate just as a lithe black figure pounced from behind him and tackled him to the ground. The two rolled to a stop, limbs flailing madly and stirring up their own little dust twister. Grunt roared and grabbed the creature by its tail, pulling it off Shepard. He swung it around once, twice, its feet lifting off the floor, before swinging it right into a support column and tearing it in two. Green blood and guts painted the wall. The krogan threw Shepard onto his feet and turned to fire his shotgun back at the open door.<p>

Jacob could hear a horrible screeching over the sound of the rapid spooling-up of the Kodiak's main plasma injectors. Just as he pulled the commander into the shuttle's open hatch, Shepard shook him off and rolled onto his back, cursing and rapidly depressing the M-100's trigger. His last three grenades whistled past the onrushing krogan and impacted with the doorframe, shaking the whole hangar. Jacob was just buckling up as he felt the shuttle shudder again as the krogan superwarrior hurled himself in. The lift jets kicked into full, drowning out the rising chorus of unearthly screams as the shuttle lifted and accelerated straight up through the hangar exit.

Shepard half-sat, half fell into the seat beside Jacob, and the Cerberus officer got his first good look at the ship's captain. Shepard was scraped bloody here and there and winded, but definitely going to survive. Jacob breathed a sigh of relief and laughed at his commander's first witticism.

"I never thought I'd be jumping on board a Cerberus vessel to get _away_ from slimy predators."

* * *

><p>She slid through the ship like greased lightning. Still wrapped in bandages, the Cerberus officer nearly vaulted crewmembers and dropped down ladders on her way to the source of the 'disturbance' reported by EDI. The ship's AI still claimed not to detect any lifeforms besides the crew, but she could confirm a struggle involving Jack and Garrus, and the two of them were not nearly stupid enough to get into a fight during this emergency.<p>

Miranda didn't' even wait for the doors to open fully before throwing the tow cable through. Charged with biotic energy, it flew right past the source of the screaming (Jack and Garrus, standing in the doorway) and wrapped around the creature like a snake. She strained at it, drawing the three-quarter inch steel braid as tight as she could and feeling it cinch against the monsters flesh. The animal screamed and flexed against it before clamping its jaws onto the metal and sawing them back and forth.

"That's not going to fucking work!" Jack screeched from her right.

"Try helping then!" Miranda retorted, just as the cable parted. She wrapped a lift field around the alien and gasped; not only had it apparently tripled in size, but increased its weight a hundredfold. "Ugh, it must have some sort of natural biotic interference!"

"Geez tips, ya think?" Jack added her own field to Miranda's, and the creature's movements suddenly slowed. Hissing and roaring, its stride became exaggerated, then its feet left the deck completely. The alien rose off the flooring, thrashing; with every motion, the two biotics' strength was sapped a little bit more. Miranda fell on one knee, ice spreading up her nerves from the base of her spine. Her own implants were hitting their built-in limits; she could tell by the grimace and the wire-taut muscles that Jack's modded L2s were already starting to overload.

"Garrus, shoot the fucker!" she ejaculated. It was less than two meters away, creeping towards them through the air with every twist and squirm.

Garrus was attempting to pound a heatsink into his assault rifle with one palm. "You bought the cheap heatsinks again!" he screeched. "They don't fit right! Oh, spirits!"

Miranda turned to say something to the turian, but by chance her eye fell upon the warning placard on the doorframe behind him. The sweet, wonderful words flooded into her brain and sparked the vague idea she'd been nursing into a full-blown plan.

_ATTN CREW: PLEASE ENSURE AIRTIGHT SEAL PRIOR TO…_

"EDI, open the stores room hatch!" Miranda barked, her biotic grip on the organism failing.

"The stores room hatch is not a double-door airlock. Once open, the pressure differential will prevent it from closing and the entire section will depressurize rapidly. Are you certain you would like me to remove the safety locks?"

"YES," all three shouted in unison

"Very well then. Shouting is not necessary," the AI curtly responded.

Just as Miranda and Jack lost their biotic grip on the floating creature, yellow safety rails popped up around an area in the centre of the floor and the hatch hissed open. All the air in the room came roaring past like a maglev freight and out the open pathway to space. The creature dropped onto the floor, staggered with the sudden relapse of gravity and the howling wind, and slid backwards into the open hatchway before one taloned hand caught on the grated floor. Its screams could be heard over the rushing air as it tried to pull itself back aboard. Garrus released one hand from his deathgrip on Jack's arm and leveled his assault rifle at the monster.

"Go and have _intercourse_ with yourself."

The spray of bullets caught it full in the head, acid blood jetting harmlessly out into space. It jerked and shuddered as parts of its flesh peeled away, then went limp as the un-life went out of it. A bullet shattered its wrist and the corpse ripped free from its hand and sailed out through the opening. The last of the atmosphere vanished with it and for several tense seconds, cold prickling sensations enveloped the four as EDI resealed the hatch and vented in fresh air.

"What in the fuck was that?" Jack broke the silence.

Miranda arched an eyebrow. "Intercourse? Really, Garrus?"

Garrus tried to splutter a retort about 'common human idioms' as the Cerberus officers and the convict each grabbed an arm and lifted him gently onto his feet. He was still trying to ward off their snickers as Miranda carried him away to the medbay. Jack stood alone, looking around at the trashed room and the skeletal hand still clinging to the floor. She whistled, long and low.

"I am _totally_ getting a tattoo of that thing all over my back."

* * *

><p>"Shepard. Need me for something?" Mordin looked up from the microscope that seemed to be attached to his face most times. Shepard folded his arms over his chest and leaned back against one of the lab benches.<p>

"Have you got a moment to talk?"

"Yes, good timing. Have mission update for you." The salarian removed a tray from the microscope's sample holder and replaced it with another one from the pile behind him. "May have discovered evidence of genetic modification in Collector DNA; could explain link between Collectors and Reapers. More testing necessary, of course. Just a theory for now."

"What about the creatures from Safhir 46?" Shepard asked. "Do you think they have a link to the Reapers too?"

"Have little information on that at the present. Was unable to secure more that small samples. From preliminary investigation, no neural network suitable for psionic control, no reports near human colonies, no interest in abducting living victims…. seems unlikely. Still, fascinating avenue of study, have already started first draft of report for Xenobiology Quarterly. Completely alien biochemistry and lifecycle… should turn heads. No effects of aging on tissue samples collected. No degradation due to exposure. Can tolerate extremes of cold, radiation, vaccum, gravity… species acclimates to almost any terrestrial planet, would thrive on colony worlds. Wish to thank you for giving me opportunities to advance personal studies- on personal time of course. Still, have given some thought to encounter on Safhir… unpleasant conclusions."

Shepard liked the salarian; he was one of the more polite crewmembers, provided one could get past their first impression of him. He smiled and rubbed at the bandages on his neck as he browsed the doctor's files. "What exactly troubles you so much? We won, didn't we?"

"Discovered what may be undeveloped reproductive organs on several scans. Given species' rapid rate of growth, suggests each individual becomes capable of parthogenetic egg-laying after certain time period. Single larvae surviving to adulthood can potentially generate limitless eggs… each egg potentially becoming egg-layer…. can obviously see where this is going. Worlds rich in host species could be decimated in matter of weeks." The doctor leaned over the table and shook his bowed head. "Asari, krogan, humans… all sentient life, merely food to organism. Terrible, terrible fate."

The commander's smile slowly reversed itself. Shepard slid the datapad back onto the table and turned to stalk briskly out of the room. Mordin grabbed his arm and turned him half around, concern wrinkling his mottled face.

"Shepard, where are you going? Was merely theorizing out loud. Apologies if I… upset you." Shepard exhaled and nodded at the salarian.

"I'm telling Joker to turn this ship around. We're going back to that rock, and we're going to rain disruptor torpedoes all over it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."

* * *

><p><strong>Report<strong>.

Mandibles clicked. Wings buzzed. Four firey yellow eyes surveyed the display, blazing with annoyance.

The Head Servant's insignificant presence had been gifted a small fleet by the Masters, and it sought to use them to the maximum potential in its service to the blessed machines. Without need for rest or nourishment, the Servant directed their fleet every second of every cycle, doing its small part to bring the Masters' plans to fruition. The displays of the main hive before it listed all the Watchers, the Seekers, the Shadowers and the Conveyor itself as they and their crews went about the business of preparing the designated organic species for ascension. The Masters routinely checked in directly, the laughing song of their minds invigorating the Head Servant's own humble being.

When they next called upon it, they would be most displeased.

A Shadower had been sent along the lines that Shepard traced through the galaxy. A single being even more insignificant than the Servant, he nevertheless had drawn the ire of several Masters, and now he was to be tracked wherever he might go. The Shadower had followed his essence to the very rim of organic space, the doorstep to the great void where the Masters dwelled, had picked up his track on a remote world not frequented by organics, and proceeded back towards the galactic arm and the relay therein. After a few cycles en route to return, its crew ceased responding to hails.

**Shadower, deliver your report.**

Surely the crew of servants had not abandoned their duties, for the Masters made them all perfect, free from doubt or dereliction. Perhaps the servants had overextended themselves and become dormant. Perhaps there was a technical fault on the ship, rare though that may be. Mandibles twitching, the Head Servant's spined limbs flew over the holo interface, sending data pulses to the Oculi escorting the vessel. They acknowledged instantly. They would accompany the derelict until its trajectory could be modified to land it on a rocky planet, and then act as beacons to guide in a recovery mission. It was risky, fraught with the possibility that organics might intervene, but it was the only way to recover the precious data on meddlesome Shepard, vexation of the Masters.

_Oh, how excellent it will be to finally receive the Shadower's gifts,_ thought the Master Servant, and it buzzed contentedly to itself.


End file.
